God love her for wanting children to take care of. She said she wanted lots of kids to make up for her lonely childhood as an only child; but she has no job, three of her first six kids are on public assistance (one is autistic) and she collects food stamps. She is living with her parents who declared bankruptcy last year and their house has only three bedrooms. She received money from a disability claim and did not give any of the settlement to her parents who supported her and her six kids for years but used it to pay for more invetro from which came the new 8 babies.
Is she nutty as a fruitcake? Or a humanitarian who feels children need love, love, love? And who are we to question her right to procreate? The Supreme Court protects a woman’s right to choose to terminate a pregnancy. It also protects a woman’s right to have 14 babies. Should there be laws prohibiting a perfectly sane woman’s right to have as many children as she wants even if it means using our tax many to support them? At the turn of the century, our agrarian society needed multiple children just to work the land. Should this apply to somebody who lives in downtown LA?
I am one of 9 children whose parents loved each other and lived into their 80’s. Dad had a good job, Mom was a stay-at-home-mom and we had no problems with money. Nevertheless, we tended to get lost in the crowd. My parents just could not give the individual care and attention each child needs and deserves. Plus older kids helped raise the younger ones. This could not be the case with Nadya Suleman. Too many kids the same age.
I am so torn by this situation. I am so mad at her for what I feel is her stupidity, immaturity and use of the system. On the other hand, babies are killed every month by callus parents who had babies and never should have in a million years. My thoughts go to Baby Grace in Texas. I cry whenever I think of that little angel.
So, what do you think? Am I thinking too much on this? Is it more cut and dried that I think?
This is an easy call: Nutty. If she was actually a humanitarian, if her primary concern was really about giving love to kids, she would have worked at becoming a foster mom and taken in abused/neglected kids who need homes. She just decided that having a bunch of kids at once would be a way of getting media attention and donations/money from people. She’s the sort of person who will do anything to get out of working an honest job.
What she did was absolutely selfish, and showed no regard for the health and well-being of her kids (both the ones already born, who will now get even less parental attention, and the new octuplets, who are likely going to grow up with a lot of medical problems because of the circumstances of the pregnancy).
There are also some rumors that she is obsessed with Angelina Jolie and may have been trying to emulate Angelina. There’s definitely some kind of psychological problem involved here.
No, you’re not. sigh Damned if I know the answer; I don’t even know my answer. I’m the oldest of nine - the old-fashioned way, one at a time.
But my parents (note the plural), though we were never well off, had nine healthy kids, and fed and clothed us out of their own pockets.
I do know that I think she is selfish and unthinking. I do know that being a child in a large family is not all she thinks it’s cracked up to be. Does that mean I believe she should have been stopped? Damned if I know.
She certainly does seem to be lacking in the responsibility department. She really hasn’t planned much of anything and is relying on others, who may or may not be willing, to carry her load for her. That strikes me as selfish.
I am pro-choice and strongly believe that a woman’s right to choose whether to continue a pregnancy or not is sacred in every circumstance. I honor her right to choose to keep the multiple pregnancies, but I don’t agree with it. I also believe that whether to have children and how many should not be interfered with (except in the case of murder and/or severe abuse of one’s children; I support forced sterilization) by any organization.
However, I also contend that a person that wants to have children beyond her means and accepts government assistance must also be responsible for giving back to society for its assistance in caring for her children’s well-being. In other words, there are many needs in this country which can be addressed by work programs. One cannot remain on the public dole indefinitely and still expect to pay for elective medical procedures. School is wonderful, but how is she paying for it? If she’s paying for it out of her own settlement funds and receiving food stamps, that’s wrong. It seems to me if the government gave her money and she received a monetary settlement, she owes the government recompense.
It’s very easy to sit back and judge with only the information the media feeds you. It’s hard to avoid doing that, but it doesn’t strike me that these children are in an ideal situation here, regardless of what she says.
I have to say that it does pique my ire that she claims she applied for food stamps, so that she could afford to put her 7-year-old son diagnosed with ADHD into a private school because “he needs tutoring to stay focused.” Lady, I feel your pain, but that’s why the government implemented the IEP program that the rest of us apparently-less-than-stellar parents relied upon without requiring food stamps. News flash: if you have 14 kids and you aren’t independently wealthy and don’t have a job, you can’t afford private schools for them. And you don’t deserve food stamps, so that you can pay for one. Grr! That one hits a little close to home.
I truly do not feel she is looking for media attention or money. My husband felt that but, Lord there are easier ways that giving birth to 14 kids. Idiot rappers do that by just wearing skimpy clothes. She could get more money and attention without the wear and tear on the body. I think she is coming from the right place but kind of got off track somewhere or something.
I do agree that if she really cared about children, she should have adopted. But, there are plenty of women who just ***MUST *** give birth to their own children and spend millions of dollars making that happen, with or without a husband. Are they any better than Nadia? Just because they have the money, does them make them any less nutty? Am I mad because she hasn’t the money or should I be just as mad at Mia Farrow who has a dozen kids but nannies to take care of them instead of caring for them herself? This woman pisses me off but I cannot put my finger on why or even if.
This is part of what bewilders me. She did not accidentally get knocked up with octuplets. She did it on purpose. (Well, sextuplets, to be fair; two of them twinned.) Why did she not spread them out over time?
I’ll add that I do have a bit of a darwinological issue with in vitro. My belief is that if an egg and a sperm don’t do their thing the normal way, there is probably a perfectly valid biological reason for it.
Honestly, I’ve wondered for a while if how she feels about having children isn’t similar to the syndrome of animal hoarding. (This is in NO WAY intended to compare children to pets; it is simply a reference to what I think may be a similar obsessive/compulsive disorder.)
Of course, it’s hard to “diagnose” anything based only on what we get from the media.
I have to say that I have to agree with that. I go nuts about women who spend too much money “fullfilling” their need for having biological children. If it’s not meant to me, so be it. I think. :smack:
If that’s the case then you must also have a problem with all medications and surgeries and therapies. If something doesn’t work “the normal way,” don’t fix it.
And haven’t we already had enough debates about that woman?
No, I don’t. In fact, I would have been dead at age 11 were it not for (1968) modern surgery.
To the best of my knowledge, nothing is fixed by in vitro fertilization. The lack of an ability to bear (or sire) a child is not life-threatening. In fact, in vitro fertilization is life-threatening to the child. The rate of birth defects is high.
The other thread appears to have run out of steam almost 48 hours ago, so I’m going to leave each alone for now. (There might be more concern that I would move this to IMHO, but there is always the posibility that this will turn into a debate. (Posters who are really worked up on the topic should know that there are also two open threads in the BBQ Pit on this topic.)
It’s a common misperception that because there is a thread in one forum about a subject that all other forums should not allow threads on it. There are vast differences between GD, IMHO, MPSIMS, and the Pit, and the mere fact that a subject has been brought up in one of these forums does not preclude it from being brought up in another.
Cool move, tomandeb, I am recently unemployed and unfortunately on this subject like a maggot. ( Almost as bad as Roseanne on OJ )
I will post links soon, but anyone interested should really
search the LA Times with just “octuplet” (duh) and you get a plethera of articles
followed from the day of discovery of an 8th baby. A great op-ed piece from thursday too.
We have learned a lot about this mystery of child bearing.
a LOT has changed. Yesterday, the publicists quit due to too many death threats. (!)
Be back soon.